Content uploaded by John Spoehr
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by John Spoehr
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
Connecting Ideas: Collaborative Innovation for a Complex World
Abstract and Figures
The key to South Australia’s future prosperity and sustainability may lie in improving our ability to build disciplinary bridges that span intellectual divides and enable a converged set of knowledge and skills to create innovative solutions to the social, economic and environmental challenges that we face. By connecting ideas across disciplines a self‐reinforcing process of collaborative innovation can emerge, offering more robust solutions to complex problems and challenges.
In Connecting Ideas the case for establishing deeply embedded collaborations between scientists, HASS researchers and policy makers is set out. To build durable disciplinary bridges requires an appreciation of the multi‐faceted character of the challenges that we face and the contributions that all disciplines can make to innovation processes and outcomes.
Content may be subject to copyright.
... he development of a more holistic innovation policy agenda that is human centred rather than technologically deterministic. In other words the prospects of solving the great challenges we face in the 21st century will be greatly improved by the insights and the contributions that HASS can provide as a key player in a modernised innovation agenda.'(Spoehr, Barnett et al. 2010, p.9) The critical issue in regards to the relationship between STEM and HASS is that a deterministic and narrow notion of the role of STEM to universities and the relationship to innovation is no longer tenable. The systemic nature of innovation and the cultural significance of scientific discovery entails an appreciation of the values ...
One of the most critical issues in regards to higher education is the relationship between education and the broader economic and social worlds. In the Malaysian context one of the more interesting issues in regards to the development of higher education and economic and social development is the relationship and synergies between the Accelerated Program of Excellence (APEX) university reform and the Governments transformation agenda articulated in One Malaysia, the Government Transformation Program and the New Economic Model.Economic modernization and globalization to which the New Economic Model (NEM) and APEX are important responses require complex theorization for us to adequately grasp and engage with. Questions for us to ponder as we consider the diverse ways in which we can understand the APEX program include: How can we maintain a commitment to values within a commitment to advancing scientific knowledge? How can we ensure that educational institutions produce innovative and creative students and yet also maintain core values? What is the relationship between APEX and National Development? To what extent is life long learning important to embed as a practice that can help Malaysia realise its national goals? Can a discussion of Universiti Sains Malaysia’s (USM) philosophy and approach under APEX case light on all these issues?
This chapter recounts the journey of researchers who navigate situational, contextual, and methodological challenges during the course of an action research project. A collective case study was used to reach cross-institutional, multidisciplinary understandings of the patterns, processes, and consequences of learner interaction in online courses. A model was constructed to explain the relationships among course design, interaction, and learning. A set of guidelines was also developed that identified curriculum design and delivery conditions conducive to interaction and effective learning in online courses. Yet it is argued the significance of this journey resides in the knowledge constructed as a consequence of the recursive actions and interactions within the research maze and the reflexive dynamic among researchers whose learning was enhanced rather than obstructed by the obstacles they found in their way.
Despite urban water providers' commitments to ideas of 'triple bottom line' sustainability, insights from humanities and social science research are still not well articulated into Australian water policy and practice, which remains dominated by a positivist epistemology that tries to 'integrate' multiple knowledges into its singular objective rationality. Arguing that 'integration' suppresses what is most valuable about Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) contributions, this paper outlines a post-positivist 'knowledge ecology' framework in which scientific and quantitative knowledges are among the diverse ways of knowing valued for helping to understand, represent and change a reality that includes a variety of knowers and standpoints. This framework is used to identify and discuss some key features of the knowledge ecology of Australian urban household water consumption, where interpretive and qualitative research is creating a modest niche and contributing to development of more socially sustainable and culturally intelligent approaches to urban water management.
The Survey of Chinese and Indian diasporic scholars in Australia was undertaken for the Asia Literacy: Language and Beyond project. The project was led by Professor Ien Ang, Institute for Culture and Society, University of Western Sydney and the Asia Literacy: Language and Beyond Expert Working Group. The project was administered by the Asia Literacy: Language and Beyond secretariat under the ACOLA Securing Australia’s Future program. The Survey of Chinese and Indian diasporic scholars in Australia explored the role that Chinese and Indian diasporic scholars living in Australia play in the promotion of people-to-people links with researchers and communities in China and India, as well as elsewhere.
The research literature regarding diaspora and increased connectivity with scholars in China and India is rich and compelling. China’s growth in research investment, publication and participation has been remarkable; while India’s growth in research publication and participation has increased substantially in recent years, supporting India’s depiction as the “sleeping giant”. Chinese and Indian diaspora are spread throughout the world, across all continents. Notwithstanding the important ‘identity’ issues associated with the concept of, and implications arising from “diaspora” assignation, this includes very large numbers of globally mobile Chinese and Indian scholars. These scholars play a vital role in driving innovation and economic growth, forging international collaborations and improving cross-cultural understanding. In Australia, the resident population of Chinese and Indian immigrants has rapidly increased, and now totals some 387,000 Chinese and 337,000 Indian immigrants (2011). The number of foreign-born scholars (including doctoral candidates) in Australia includes large and growing numbers of scholars from China and India. At the same time, Chinese and Indian international students are vitally important to Australia’s export education industry, while the recruitment of the best Chinese and Indian graduating students through “two-step migration” contributes to the flow of international scholars into Australia.
The transnational flows of people and ideas and international scholarly collaborations have grown in recent decades. This growth has been attributed to the rising importance of global phenomena, dispersion of expertise, high cost of major research infrastructure, growth of information communication technology and ease of international travel. Concomitantly, the proportion of the world’s collaboratively authored scholarly publications has increased, as has Australia’s. In the globalized, knowledge-based world, preliminary concerns regarding “brain drain” have now turned to opportunities to leverage “brain circulation” and “diaspora options”. Globally, governments have developed diaspora policy responses spanning economic, knowledge-economy, migration, education and research and development (R&D) considerations. The Australian, Chinese and Indian governments have all recognized the important opportunities presented by expanding people-to-people connectivity and international research collaborations.
The Asia Literacy: Language and Beyond secretariat administered the survey in the period July-August, 2014. In total, 244 survey responses were received. The survey respondents were overwhelmingly Australian citizens or permanent residents. The vast majority was born in China (89 respondents) or India (85 respondents). The remaining respondents were born in Australia (11), another Asian country (35), a Pacific country (7), or another country outside the Asia-Pacific region (9). Respondents identified their ethnic and/or cultural backgrounds in various ways, broadly described in most instances as ‘Chinese’ or ‘Indian’. Many respondents elaborated, demonstrating the complexity and layering of ethnicity conceptions spanning geographical, religious and cultural distinctions. The age profile was skewed towards mid- to late-career respondents.
The respondents were highly educated, primarily doctoral degree holders, or holders of a postgraduate degree or postgraduate diploma. Respondents’ postgraduate qualifications were predominantly obtained from Australia, followed by India and China; however some obtained their postgraduate qualifications from the dominant export education players (the United States, United Kingdom and Canada). Over half of the respondents had stability in their employment arrangements, having employment in a permanent position. The respondents were overwhelmingly employed in a research-intensive position, from a wide disciplinary spread predominantly science and engineering. Many respondents were multilingual. Almost all were fluent in English and many were also fluent either in Indian languages (predominantly Hindi) or Chinese languages (predominantly Putonghua).
This paper reviews the growing body of research that explores ‘the social shaping of technology’ (SST) — how the design and implementation of technology are patterned by a range of ‘social’ and ‘economic’ factors as well as narrowly ‘technical’ considerations. It shows how researchers from a range of disciplinary backgrounds were brought together by a critique of traditional conceptions of technology (for example, ‘linear models’ of innovation that privileged technological supply or restricted the scope of social inquiry into technology to assessing its ‘impacts’). Though their analytical frameworks differ to a greater or lesser extent in terminology and approach, some explanatory concepts have emerged, and constitute an effective model of the innovation process. Here, it is suggested, SST offers a deeper understanding and also potentially broadens the technology policy agenda. These claims are assessed through a review of recent research into specific instances of social shaping, particularly in relation to information technology. Finally the article discusses some of the intellectual dilemmas in the field. Though the intellectual cross-fertilisation has been creative, points of tension and divergence between its constituent strands have resulted in some sharp controversies, which reflect upon the theoretical and policy claims of SST.
The project was undertaken in the context of the South Australian Government’s Social Inclusion Initiative and South Australia’s Strategic Plan. It provides an evidence base to inform policy and program development related to the successful implementation, evaluation and enhancement of these strategies.
A 25-year study of 11 top-performing Australian organisations has revealed valuable innovation lessons for companies wanting to emulate them. These findings show that many conventional views on innovation are myths, and provide a practical guide to innovating successfully, overcoming the barriers many companies face. By using a broad definition of innovation and by getting the whole organisation geared for change, Australian companies can greatly improve their innovative capacity.
Students of creativity have examined innovation in the arts, sciences, and engineering. Social innovation, the generation and implementation of new ideas about social relationships and social organization, has received less attention. This effort uses a case study approach, drawing from the historic record provided by Benjamin Franklin, to formulate some initial hypotheses about the strategies and tactics used to generate and implement social innovations. It was found that Franklin identified problems based on practical need, analyzed causes carefully, generated contextually appropriate low-cost implementation strategies, and built the support needed for demonstration projects. The implications of these strategies and tactics for innovation in modern organizations are discussed.
The Productivity Commission’s research report into ‘Public Support for Science and Innovation’ was released March 2007. The Australian Government asked the Commission to evaluate the economic, social and environmental returns on this investment. The main message from the Commission’s report is that there are widespread economic, social and environmental benefits to Australia from supporting science and innovation. However, the Commission identified a number of stresses in the science and innovation system that need resolution. The Commission proposes changes to certain business programs, including the R&D tax concession. It believes there is a better chance of stimulating R&D in the business sector if changes are made to the design and scope of the tax concession. The Commission also makes findings in relation to program evaluation, governance issues and intellectual property frameworks. The Commission canvasses some options that might increase the possibility of net benefits from the recent Government decision to adopt the Research Quality Framework. The Commission favours a scheme that is more strongly weighted against the poorest research performers than apparently currently envisaged. But as the Research Quality Framework evolves, the Commission suggests the use of a lower cost, risk minimisation approach that only applies to poor performing areas in universities.
Applying recent theoretical concepts of social systems to innovation networks of firms leads to the presumption that linking firms to non-business systems stimulates innovativeness more than remaining within the business system’s set of routines. Crossing the border to science, in particular, increases the diversity of firms’ innovation partners and respective innovation stimuli which, in turn, improves the capability of firms to introduce more advanced innovations. This contention is supported by a statistical analysis using data from a research project on innovation systems in several European regions. The results demonstrate that partners from science are more important than the firms’ customers for the introduction of products which are new to the market.
Technological change is often seen as something that follows its own logic - something we may welcome, or about which we may protest, but which we are unable to alter fundamentally. This reader challenges that assumption and its distinguished contributors demonstrate that technology is affected at a fundamental level by the social context in which it develops. General arguments are introduced about the relation of technology to society and different types of technology are examined: the technology of production; domestic and reproductive technology; and military technology.
The book draws on authors from Karl Marx to Cynthia Cockburn to show that production technology is shaped by social relations in the workplace. It moves on to the technologies of the household and biological reproduction, which are topics that male-dominated social science has tended to ignore or trivialise - though these are actually of crucial significance where powerful shaping factors are at work, normally unnoticed. The final section asks what shapes the most frightening technology of all - the technology of weaponry, especially nuclear weapons.
The editors argue that social scientists have devoted disproportionate attention to the effects of technology on society, and tended to ignore the more fundamental question of what shapes technology in the first place. They have drawn both on established work in the history and sociology of technology and on newer feminist perspectives to show just how important and fruitful it is to try to answer that deeper question. The first edition of this reader, published in 1985, had a considerable influence on thinking about the relationship between technology and society. This second edition has been thoroughly revised and expanded to take into account new research and the emergence of new theoretical perspectives.
The experimental methodologies developed in the Creative Industries National Mapping Project (CINMP) by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries & Innovation at Queensland University of Technology indicate that previous attempts to measure the significance of the Australian creative production capacity and employment have underestimated their true extent. The CCI applies its Creative Trident methodology, systematic definitions of the segments and sectors to whole population data-sets from the 2001 Australian Census and an extract of the Australian Business Register (ABR) as at April 2006.